Tampines to be first town centre in Singapore to have district cooling network

Tampines will be the first town centre in Singapore to have a distributed district cooling (DDC) network, announced Temasek and SP Group in a joint media release on Monday (Apr 18). 

The network will be completed by the first half of 2025. It is meant to provide cooling environments while saving energy and reducing carbon emissions to seven buildings in Tampines Central.

The seven buildings are Century Square, CPF Tampines Building, Income at Tampines Junction, OCBC Tampines Centre 2, Our Tampines Hub, Tampines Mall and Tampines One. 

This upcoming project is expected to help the town centre reduce carbon emissions by 1,359 tonnes annually, which is equivalent to removing 1,236 cars off Singapore’s roads. This initiative is part of a partnership between SP Group, Temasek, Tampines GRC and the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment (MSE) to support the SG Green Plan 2030.

Instead of constructing a new centralised cooling plant to distribute the chilled water, the project will make use of existing chiller plants in the buildings. Several injection nodes from the buildings were selected as distribution points based on their “existing excess cooling capacity and superior energy efficiency factor”.

A piping network will connect the injection nodes to circulate chilled water between the buildings for their cooling needs, doing away with the need for their own cooling plants completely.

With the new piping network, the installed cooling capacity in the buildings is optimised and ensures the chiller systems operate at maximum efficiency. 

Out of the seven buildings to be plugged into the network, Century Square, Our Tampines Hub, and Tampines One will be the ones to serve as the injection nodes. 

Mr Stanley Huang, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SP Group, said: “The widespread implementation of low-carbon technologies like distributed district cooling can make a significant contribution towards Singapore’s climate ambitions.”

“We are encouraged by the strong support from building owners for this sustainable cooling solution, which will contribute towards Tampines’ Eco-Town ambitions and will also create a long-term sustainable impact for Singapore’s built environment.”